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Mac Forum / Applications / PowerPoint / June 2005Macs in a cross platform environment accessing video clips
I have PC created PPTs with video clips (all living in the same folder) that are stored on our intranet in a read only public network drive that when shared with PC users via the intranet link, everything is smooth. When Mac users click on the intranet link, the PPT opens, but the video clips cannot be found. Is this because the Mac downloads the PPT to it's desktop and therefore breaks the links? How do I make the Mac user experience the same smooth output as the PC user? Lots of options have been offered. I'm mostly curious how a Mac treats a PPT that it opens from an intranet link.... Hi, The Mac and Windows versions use the same general procedure to open linked files. Is the linked media at the exact same directory level as the presentations? Was the media present in the same directory level when the presentatations were linked to the media? Were the presentations moved since the links were made? If the media and the presentation files are in the same folder at the same directory level when the links are made, in general PowerPoint will make a relative link. Relative links are what you want to have. In all other scenarios PowerPoint creates an absolute link to the source. The absolute link may be in a format that is a valid path or may be a different path when opened from a Mac. If you know Visual Basic then head to PowerPoint's visual basic editor and look up the help topic LinkSource Property Example. There's a code sample there and it should determine the path that PowerPoint is using for the linked objects and display that information to you. You can use the LinkSource property to set the source as well as find out what the source path is (according to help, anyway. I haven't tried it). -Jim  SignatureJim Gordon Mac MVP MVP FAQ <http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs> > I have PC created PPTs with video clips (all living in the same folder) that > are stored on our intranet in a read only public network drive that when [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > smooth output as the PC user? Lots of options have been offered. I'm mostly > curious how a Mac treats a PPT that it opens from an intranet link.... To add a bit ... > If the media and the presentation files are in the same folder at the > same directory level when the links are made, in general PowerPoint will > make a relative link. Relative links are what you want to have. In all > other scenarios PowerPoint creates an absolute link to the source. The > absolute link may be in a format that is a valid path or may be a > different path when opened from a Mac. Or if it's working on the PCs, the path to the linked files might be in PC format and the files still where they were linked from. IOW, the link path might be something like: h:\some folder\myfile.xxx As long as the PCs all have the h: drive mapped identically, the path will work. It probably won't on Mac, or so my guess goes. All of which points back to your original suggestion, of course. The links need to be made relative/pathless. > If you know Visual Basic then head to PowerPoint's visual basic editor > and look up the help topic LinkSource Property Example. There's a code > sample there and it should determine the path that PowerPoint is using > for the linked objects and display that information to you. You can use > the LinkSource property to set the source as well as find out what the > source path is (according to help, anyway. I haven't tried it). There's some link editing code ready made here: Show me the link and let me edit it http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00433.htm Part of it checks for .XXX file extensions. That might need to be commented out but otherwise it should work ok on Mac. The only hitch is that PPT won't let you link to a file that's not there. That is, if you edit the link path to point to a file in a particular place, the file must be there. Otherwise, PPT ignores you. No error messages, but it doesn't change the link either. ================================================ Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com PPTools: www.pptools.com ================================================ Thanks, Jim and Steve. Sadly the PC and Mac are not responding the same to the clips I've linked to my presentations. All clips were in the same folder with the presentation before being linked to the presentation and all have remained in that folder to date. Maybe it is the way the PC links the clips that the Mac cannot understand/interpret. I'm going to try creating identical versions on a Mac and share it via our intranet with a couple PC users and Mac users to see what they experience from the Mac created version. Mapping to the drive has not been necessary for the PC users because they all have read only public access without mapping and have had a good end-user experience. I can't get all my Mac users to map to that drive, because for most of them, the content is 'nice to know' but not 'need to know.' Thanks again. TKB > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > > smooth output as the PC user? Lots of options have been offered. I'm mostly > > curious how a Mac treats a PPT that it opens from an intranet link.... |
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